The Once and Future Kyoko
by Chrono180
Summary: I've made many mistakes. I hurt people who I cared about, people who called me friend, people who loved me. But I promise you, I will make them right. Maybe I can't save my family, but I swear to you, Mami, Sayaka... I'll fix this. Or die trying.


The Once and Future Kyoko.

Twitter account backstory (Full of Madoka spoilers, obviously)

Alright. So you want to know who I am, how I got to be so awesome and all that jazz? Well, its going to be a long, complicated story. Anything with time travel is complicated and this is even moreso for reasons that will soon become apparent.

I suppose not everyone knows who I am, who my friends are, what an asshole Kyuubey is, etc. If you do skip down to where I mark down "Pre-ascension timeline." There's two timelines that are relevant here. Pre-ascention and post-ascension. Anyway, let me give a summary of how my world works and who the main players are.

The way it works is that there's these aliens, called Incubators. They're in pretty much every town and city and you can't see them unless they want you to see you. They approach girls. Usually teenage ones, but sometimes even younger, who have severe emotional issues. They offer them whats known as a "contract" which is supposedly a sweet deal. They'll grant a wish of yours and you'll become a "Puella Magi". A magical girl. You in turn have to fight "witches" which are lovecraftian monsters that hide in bubble universes and influence random people in the street to murder each other or commit suicide. Conveniently, they also can't be seen unless you're a Puella Magi. Or get targeted.

The Incubators specifically leave out the part witches used to be puella magi, until they become too upset from the aforementioned emotional issues.

They're sociopaths, what can I say?

Anyway, the Incubator relevant here is Kyuubey. A short, cat like creature whose form is specifically designed to make girls think he's cute and contract and stuff.

He's a resident of Mitakihara, as well as others like Kasamino, the next town over that I took as my territory.

The girls he either contracted or tried to contract are as follows.

Myself, Kyoko Sakura, formerly a nice, helpful girl and then a total asshole and a half. The wish I had made ended up getting my family killed and I having to survive on the street as a burglar and con artist for about a year. Egoistic, hotheaded, liable to get into fights for any reason or no reason at all... You get the picture.

My former senpai. Mami Tomoe. Probably one of the most good-hearted people you'll ever meet in any universe. Her time as a Puella Magi resulted in pretty much everyone she once considered a friend leaving her due to her extreme business with the craft. Our partnership came to a sudden and extreme, but thankfully not permanent end when my family got killed.

Sayaka Miki, a good hearted but extraordinarily stubborn girl who Mami took as her second student a year after my departure. Which took place a few days after the arrival of

Homura Akemi, an enigmatic girl with little patience for my temper and who had, and I didn't know this until much later, had been in a groundhog day loop for hundreds or thousands of months, repeating events over and over again solely to save her only friend

Madoka Kaname, a girl who, due to near-incessant bullying had wound up with the second worst self-esteem issues I've ever seen, an fervent desire to help people, and enough magical power that if she contracted and turned into a witch, the planet would end in a nightmare of black tendrils within the week. The power Kyuubey could harvest from her alone could "fill his quota", so he did anything and everything to get her to contract. Or at least, he tried to do anything and everything. His carefully laid plans went off the rails a couple days after Homura's arrival in school due to a couple so called "anomalies".

The first is Oriko Mikuni. I'd describe her as "Precognative Lelouch". She's cold, ruthless, Machiavellian, and would do anything and everything it took to accomplish her goal. Saving the planet from Madoka's witch.

The second was Oriko's right-hand woman. Kirika Kure, who had the worlds worst self-esteem until she made her contract, then threw that all away in exchange for a severe case of "Wacko-stalker-hyperactive-fucked-in-the-head." Also, she's a hell of a fighter.

Anyway.

Pre- ascension Timeline:

I'm going to say right now I was completely ignorant of this entire timeline until very near the end of the other one. Homura's the time traveler, I'm not. I just stole a time machine from some other girl and came back here.

Anyway, in this timeline, Kyuubey's plans started falling apart the day he contracted Oriko and Kirika, the former being smart enough to outfit him, and the latter being deadly enough to enforce the formers wishes.

They had the bright idea to lure Kyuubey away from Madoka by killing his other contractees. I found out about it when dead Pulla Magi started popping up in the labyrinths of the witches I killed. So I went back to Mitakihara. While I would have sooner died than admit it on the day I left, I wanted to make sure this psycho girl-killer wouldn't target Mami. Admittedly, I barely gave a thought to the fact she might have died in between, which I still feel kind of guilty about.

I like to say you should live your life with as few regrets as possible. I didn't consider then that something you don't regret at the time could make you feel really bad later on when you realize the consequence of your decision.

In any case, I didn't get to find Mami. Cause Kirika found me first. I'm going to summarize the battle by saying that it was short, nasty, and ended with me bleeding out from about a dozen nasty stab wounds. Reflexes and a sweet spear-chain don't do nearly enough against a girl who can slow down time. I had dropped my soul gem down an empty grate in the sidewalk, so they figured since they couldn't break it, they'd just cut me open and leave me for dead.

Course, I didn't wind up dying there due to the fact a certain blue-haired girl from Mitakihara high happened to find me on the pavement, and be approached by Kyuubey...

I'm sure you know Sayaka's wish was typically to cure the hands of that violinist guy she had a unreasonably intense crush on in the hospital. But on the other hand, she wasn't the type to let a complete stranger bleed out in front of her when she had the power to save me.

Or rather, save us both. She made her wish for a healing touch.

And yes, I was completely flabbergested by someone taking on the burden of a Puella Magi to save me of all people. But I couldn't really argue being that if she hadn't, I'd be, ya know, dead.

And I was even more flabbergasted when I met Mami and found she didn't hate me at all for abandoning her in an emotionally vulnerable state. Even though I made her worst nightmare come true. That girl was nicer to me than I deserved.

I went through a great deal of introspection that night, as you can probably guess. I didn't change overnight, for sure, but it was the triggering point.

Anyway, Oriko's plans to lure Kyuubey away from Madoka were shot to hell the next day when Kyuubet went with Sayaka to school, and since Sayaka and Madoka are BFFs, she had to improvise. So she contacted Mami, not knowing I was with Mami, about an alliance. She knew she couldn't straight up kill Madoka now, not with Sayaka being right there, you know, so she decided the best course of action would be to try and prevent her from contracting.

I could have shot her down right then by telling Mami and Sayaka she and her psycho friend were the ones who tried to kill me, but I had a hunch. I just felt like I should keep that to myself.

We took down a few witches that way. Some giant black worm like creature, one that looked like a crayon drawing, a squid-headed thing with roses all up and down its body... Of course, then, Homura, realizing Oriko was in this timeline, decided the best course of action would be to kill her and Kirka.

Our trio received a call around three in the morning a few days after we teamed with the pair. When we got to their home, Kirika was dead with a bullet in her skull, slowing time being no match for stopping it entirely. And Oriko and Homura had wound up in a battle of attrition to see who used up all their power first. And, as you can probably guess, Oriko did, being she didn't have an extradimentional storage compartment with the entire arsenal of the Yakuza inside.

So, yeah, thats when we found out the witches we were killing used to be teenage girls. Oriko had a particularly nasty one, a giant mass of spheres and eyeballs named Cassandra. We killed it, and Sayaka blew up at Homura, and I blew up at Kyuubey, and Mami was on the verge of a nervous breakdown until I gave her a well timed hug.

I love hugs, you know that? Seems like they can solve damn near anything.

Anyway, Sayaka started getting all angsty about her wanna-be-boyfriend. My initial idea was to beat some sense into her, but I discarded that and tried hitting on her to make her feel better. Maybe she's a zombie, but its not like she's the only one and its not like that idiot was the only potential date in the planet.

Not like I found her attractive.

Ok, that's a lie. I found her attractive. Very attractive. So sue me.

Yes, she was confused, but it seemed to help.

Eventually, we got closer. Eventually, we went on a date.

And then Walspurgisnacht arrived and everything went to hell.

Mami died, Sayaka broke so many bones it would have taken her hours to recover even with her healing factor, I was having a hard time myself even with my recently-restored ability to create illusionary duplicates of myself.

Yes, I can summon duplicates. Yes, its awesome. Yes, I do look incredibly hot when I make out with myself thank you for asking. Sometimes I wonder how I lasted an entire year without it, but anyway.

It was around the point Homura had a building collapse on her and was on the verge of breaking down that Madoka arrived and decided to give Kyuubey and his race of sociopathic monsters a big "Screw you!" by contracting to rewire the entire universe so that she would take ever Puella Magi away the moment they would have become a wish.

Her Ascension.

I mean, its not like she mattered, according to her. Regardless of leaving Mami without one of her closest friend, her parents without a daughter, Homura without her only friend.

So she saved the world, and everyone forgot about her, aside from Homura.

Anyway, Then there's the Post Ascension timeline.

The Pulla Magi deal is more straightforward in that one. Instead of witches, we fight demons. They weren't ever girls, or human. I have no idea where they came from but there were a hell of a lot of them. When we reach our limit, magically or emotionally, we vanish.

My introduction to Mami and Sayaka wasn't nearly as pleasant this time around. Kyuubey suggested I come to Mitakihara. I did, and the first thing I did was get into a fight with Sayaka. The second thing I did was make Mami feel like an utter failure as a person.

When Sayaka eventually confessed her feelings to violinist... Kyousuke. That was his name, Kyousuke. When she confessed to him, he shot her down. Said he didn't want a relationship to get in the way of their friendship. And that fool stubborn girl started self-destructing. Mami couldn't reach her, Madoka no longer existed, I figured I'd beat some sense into her. And then I figured beating her with words would be more effective.

So I gave a long, extensive lecture about what a complete idiot she was being, how she had staked too much on this guy, how if he was a ungrateful ass who didn't appreciate what she had done he wasn't worth the time of day, let alone a relationship, and then I finished it off by telling her that her idiocy was driving Mami to the point of self-destruction herself.

I may be an idiot, but I'm not stupid. You can't be a con artist if you don't understand how peoples minds work. She sure as hell wouldn't believe me if I was nice, so I was nasty in an honest and blunt as anything way.

And, thankfully, it helped. She went back to Mami, began recovering. And then Mami invited me over for tea.

As I said, nicer to me than I deserved.

Eventually, we became a trio. The Senpai and her two students. Homura was still around, off in the city. We occasionally interacted but she was an outsider in every way possible.

I mean, there were times when we teamed up. But I had a hard time buying her tale of a planet of witches and misery and of an omnipresent savior who will take us when our time is up.

I had a hard time believing in any religion, really. But there were some things that I couldn't figure out. One was the fact she had wings. I knew a hell of a lot of Puella Magi in my time, not one had wings. Then there was that ribbon she always wore in her hair. Which was a bizarre fashion statement for someone as standoffish as she was.

And then there was the fact there whenever I was around her, every so often, I would catch a glimpse of pink and white out of the corner of my eye, often accompanied by childish laughter and a feeling of warmth.

Anyway, I got closer to close to Sayaka and Mami. It took months, but I eventually got together with the former. And eventually, I asked the latter if she wanted me to start calling her Senpai again. She said not too. She saw me as an equal. Her sister.

Yes, I saw her as the same. And yes, I felt like a monster myself for having ever left her.

We were around for two years. Two, very fine, happy, fun years. But nothing lasts forever.

At one point, I got involved with some business in Asunaro City that left me MIA for about a month. When I finally got it finished I came back to find Sayaka had been taken away by the law of cycles after the emotional trauma of her friend Hitomi committing suicide under the pressure of college aspirations.

Mami had though she was alone again, the poor girl. I promised then and there I would never leave her again.

And I didn't. For six more months we fought together, just like old times before everything happened. But eventually there came a point where she also fell.

I'm going to say right out though, she went out like a grade-A badass. I had been badly injured by a particularly nasty demon, and days later we found that demons superior had come to town.

We went out to face it, but Mami insisted I stay on the sidelines as I had been nearly incapacitated. She fought alone in battle, though not in spirit, against a demon king with the power to level the city.

And she beat it. It took everything she had and then some, but she beat it. Six muskets of Tiro Finale level fired at once. I think even Homura was impressed when I told her about it.

With my lover and my mentor gone,I felt at loss for what to do in my life. I talked to Homura and she explained what had gone on in timelines prior. I didn't believe it, until she used her magic to give me back the memories of the previous timeline. She then told me to set my own path in life.

So I broke into her house and stole her diary. And stole a time machine from a Puella Magi I knew in Kasamino named Gaige.

What can I say? I'm a thief.

Three volumes, a thousand or more pages each, in tiny print, and in german which I assume was to prevent anyone else from reading it.

And yes, the first thing I did was to read the last pages of the last volume to confirm the new memories.

Mami's gone? I'll save her. Sayaka's gone? I'll save her too. Madoka, Oriko, Kirika...

I'm going to change this. For so long, I fought only for myself. I hurt Mami, Sayaka, Homura...

The greatest gift you can be given is an opportunity to right one's wrongs. I was given that gift. I'm going to repay it.

Or failing that, I'll die trying.

[[Note from the author: Follow me on twitter. AwesomeKyoko.]]


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